The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 25th Anniversary Edition - Douglas Adams

Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

How shall we begin?

This is the story of a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy-not an Earth book, never published on Earth and, until the terrible catastrophe
occurred, never seen or even heard of by any Earthman. Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable
book.

or

This is the story of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a number-one
best seller in England, a weekly radio series with millions of fanatic listeners,
and soon to be a television spectacle on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

or

This
is the story of Arthur Dent, who, secnds before Earth is demolished to make way for
a galactic freeway, is plucked off the planet by his friend, Ford Prefect, who has
been posing as an out-of-work actor for the last fifteen years but is really a researcher
for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Together they begin
a journey through the galaxy aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
with the words don't panic written on the front. ("A towel is about the most massively
useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.")

In their travels they meet:
Zaphod Beeblebrox-the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch
President of the Galaxy
Trillian-Zaphod's girl friend, formerly Tricia McMillan,
whom Arthur once tried to pick up at a cocktail party
Marvin-a
paranoid android,
a brilliant but chronically depressed robot
Veet Voojagig-former graduate student
obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he bought over the years

To find the answers to these burning questions: Why are we born? Why do we die?
And why do we spend so much time in between wearing digital watches? read The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy. But remember . . . don't panic, and don't forget to bring a
towel.